Editing Laurence Binyon (section)

==Early life==
Laurence Binyon was born in [[Lancaster, Lancashire|Lancaster]], [[Lancashire]], England. His parents were Frederick Binyon, a clergyman of the Church of England, and Mary Dockray. Mary's father, Robert Benson Dockray, was a main engineer of the [[London and Birmingham Railway]]. His forebears were Quakers.<ref name="dictionary">[http://arthistorians.info/binyonl Binyon, (Robert) Laurence]. arthistorians.info. Retrieved on 19 July 2016.</ref>

Binyon studied at [[St Paul's School, London]]. Then he read [[Classics]] (''[[Honour Moderations]]'') at [[Trinity College, Oxford]], where he won the [[Newdigate Prize]] for poetry in 1891.

Immediately after graduating in 1893, Binyon started working for the Department of Printed Books of the [[British Museum]], writing [[Exhibition catalogue|catalogues]] for the museum and art [[monographs]] for himself. In 1895 his first book, ''Dutch Etchers of the Seventeenth Century'', was published. In that same year, Binyon moved into the museum's Department of Prints and Drawings, under [[Campbell Dodgson]].<ref name="dictionary" /> In 1909, Binyon became its Assistant Keeper.<ref>Arrowsmith, Rupert Richard. [https://books.google.com/books?id=MIBNXScRj3QC&dq=modernism%20and%20the%20museum&pg=PP1 ''Modernism and the Museum: Asian, African and Pacific Art and the London Avant Garde'']. Oxford University Press, 2011, pp.103–164. {{ISBN|978-0-19-959369-9}}
*Also see Arrowsmith, Rupert Richard. [http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/modernism-modernity/summary/v018/18.1.arrowsmith.html "The Transcultural Roots of Modernism: Imagist Poetry, Japanese Visual Culture, and the Western Museum System"], ''[[Modernism/modernity]]'' Volume 18, Number 1, January 2011, pp. 27–42. {{ISSN|1071-6068}}.</ref><ref>[http://vimeo.com/arrowsmith/asia-and-modernism Video of a Lecture discussing Binyon's role in the introduction of East Asian art to Modernists in London], ''[[School of Advanced Study]]'', July 2011.</ref>

1913, he was made the Keeper of the new Sub-Department of Oriental Prints and Drawings. Around then, he played a crucial role in the formation of Modernism in London by introducing young [[Imagism|Imagist poets]] such as [[Ezra Pound]], [[Richard Aldington]] and [[H.D.]] to East Asian visual art and literature.<ref>Arrowsmith, Rupert Richard. [https://books.google.com/books?id=MIBNXScRj3QC&dq=modernism%20and%20the%20museum&pg=PP1 ''Modernism and the Museum: Asian, African and Pacific Art and the London Avant Garde'']. Oxford University Press, 2011, pp.103–164. {{ISBN|978-0-19-959369-9}}
*Also see Arrowsmith, Rupert Richard. [http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/modernism-modernity/summary/v018/18.1.arrowsmith.html "The Transcultural Roots of Modernism: Imagist Poetry, Japanese Visual Culture, and the Western Museum System"], ''[[Modernism/modernity]]'' Volume 18, Number 1, January 2011, pp. 27–42. {{ISSN|1071-6068}}.</ref><ref>[http://vimeo.com/arrowsmith/asia-and-modernism Video of a Lecture discussing Binyon's role in the introduction of East Asian art to Modernists in London], ''[[School of Advanced Study]]'', July 2011.</ref> Many of Binyon's books produced at the museum were influenced by his own sensibilities as a poet although some were works of plain scholarship, such as his four-volume catalogue of all of the museum's English drawings and his seminal catalogue of Chinese and Japanese prints.

In 1904 he married historian Cicely Margaret Powell, and the couple had three daughters. During those years, Binyon belonged to a [[social circle|circle]] of artists, as a regular patron of the [[Vienna Café]] in [[Oxford Street]]. His fellow intellectuals there were Ezra Pound, Sir [[William Rothenstein]], [[Walter Sickert]], [[Charles Ricketts]], [[Lucien Pissarro]] and [[Edmund Dulac]].<ref name="dictionary" />

Binyon's reputation before the [[First World War]] was such that on the death of the [[Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom|Poet Laureate]] [[Alfred Austin]] in 1913, Binyon was among the names mentioned in the press as his likely successor. Others named included [[Thomas Hardy]], [[John Masefield]] and [[Rudyard Kipling]], with the post going to [[Robert Bridges]].